Páginas

domingo, 4 de diciembre de 2016

Prelude to a Hobbit Trilogy review

The Phantom Menace was The Phantom Menace of movie
prequel sagas

I
dislike The Hobbit films, even if I’m not a Tolkien nerd, for being spots for
the original trilogy instead of actual movies. The novel can’t be directly
adapted into a three-act film unless the result is a bit disastrous like the
Rankin and Bass animated. It’s a shameless marketing strategy by Warner to fill
the void of Harry Potter after the Deadly Hallows two-parter paid-off.

I
would like them more if they were a duology without the unnecessary filler,
cameos of characters who didn’t appear in the novel and romantic subplot. If
you analyze it from a narratological point of view, the first installment
should have ended with the group arriving to the Lonely Mountain and just a
second part for the rest. It’s obvious that Guillermo del Toro put the parameters
when he was going to film the two-parter instead of Peter Jackson.

The
first installment is the most logical adaptation and has the most memorable
scenes of the novel, like the 75% of what you want to see. But the rhythm is irregular,
like the novel itself, which is basically a trip where just the beginning and
ending are important. You could delete the trolls, goblins, spiders and other
obstacles until Smaug and the plot wouldn’t change much.

A paragraph for each film

An
Unexpected Journey only redeems itself for having the least filler, but the orc
chief is the lamest villain ever that the novel did just mention in the end. It’s
a “shit sandwich” for having great beginning and end but crux with just some
entertaining scene and too much obvious sequel-teasing.

The
second Hobbit film is my favorite for having the most consistent pacing that
only breaks its rhythm to include things that actually were on the novel. While
the first installment has irregular pacing for the plot-irrelevant obstacles,
Desolation of Smaug makes you forgive the spiders and elves for the
character-development and having the best scenes of the trilogy. The barrel
scene or fight against Smaug feel more like cinematic tropes instead of
marketing strategies, which can’t be said for the Twilight-esque romantic
subplot.

But
the third is so bad that looks like an auto-parody and confirms the desire of
having just a two-part adaptation. It’s very obvious they got without material
to adapt and focused more on tying-in with the original trilogy so batlantly
that George Lucas would take his hat off. It codified a pattern on prequel
trilogies like Fantastic Animals and I remember nothing good but teasing scenes
that could rock like Sauron or giant worms that do nothing.